Bicycle Shops of Dayton

The Wright brothers first had a printing shop in the late 1800s.  I have some print shop photos from our visit to Carillon Park and I'll share those in a future blog entry.  For now, this blog entry is focused on the bicycles shops of Dayton at the turn of last century.  However, I wanted to mention that the brothers had a print shop and published two Dayton newspapers before eventually getting into bicycles through the 1890s.  I mention this to show their experience with retail storefront spaces.  After printing and newspapers, they ventured into designing, manufacturing and selling bicycles.  

During this time of making and selling bicycles, they moved from place to place in five different locations in Dayton.  They were at one of these locations so briefly that most historians don't include this location.  To be historically accurate, however, I believe it should be included even if they were there for only a matter of weeks.  Personally, I've been to all of these sites and we recently brought two of our oldest grandchildren to see two of the shops, one vacant lot and another address where a pharmacy currently resides.   

One of these bicycle shops is next door to and part of the Dayton Aviation Heritage Center which is today a National Historic Park.  The site of one of the other bicycle shops was across Third Street where a pharmacy currently stands which is right around the corner from the Heritage Center.  There was another shop located on Third Street one block away and we also pointed that out to the kids while we were there.  A replica bicycle shop of one of the Third Street shops is at Carillon Park in the row of buildings that are part of the Wright Brothers National Museum in Carillon Park and we also brought the kids there.  

The brothers sold their own make of bicycles which financially supported their efforts in designing and building a working aircraft...  first gliders and then going larger into powered aircraft.  

In the back room of these bicycle shops, there was always a workshop mostly dedicated to aircraft design.  They even tested some wing shapes mounted on the handlebars of their bicycles to determine the best shape to use.  They would position the wing to see its effect on a moving bicycle.  They also had built their own wind tunnels which were located in the back shop of these bicycle shops.  These back room shops and wind tunnels are still located in these historical buildings. 

In the photo below, we see Lukey at the door of the shop on South Williams Street next to the Heritage Center... 

Below, we have the replica bicycle shop at Carillon Park as part of the Wright Brothers National Museum.  This is a replica of one of their shops on Third Street on the west side of Dayton...

The next few photos show our visit to the bicycle shop at Carillon Park...

Below, we can see the rear part of the front end of the bicycle shop at Carillon Park.  This area is open to the front counter area.  This was their workbench for building and fixing bicycles.  Through that door to Kenzie's right is the back room shop where they worked on aircraft design and building parts.  

The next three photos show the back room workshop for designing and building aircraft parts...

Here is one of the Wright brothers' early wind tunnels for testing wing shape designs...

This "Dayton Cyclery" building is at Carillon Park.  Inside are bicycles from the various bicycle manufacturers that also started in Dayton...

Not only were Wright bicycles and Huffy Bicycles made in Dayton but so were "Cygnet Bicycles" made by Stoddard Manufacturing who made automobiles as well (which are in a different building at Carillon Park).  

Other non-Dayton-manufactured bicycles were displayed in this "Dayton Cyclery" shop at Carillon Park.  For instance, "Yale Bicycles" and "Columbia Bicycles" were represented here too (if I remember correctly) and they were manufactured by Pope Manufacturing out of Boston.  They were, however, sold in bicycle shops in Dayton during this period when the Wright brothers also had a bicycle shop.  Of course, the Wright brothers also repaired all bicycles so they had a working knowledge of all the bicycles of the era.  

It is also worth noting that they manufactured parts for all the bicycles right in their own small back room shop where they were also manufacturing aircraft parts.  

Huffy Bicycles started in Dayton.  "Davis Sewing Machine" of New York started building bicycles in 1892.  In particular, the "Dayton" model was a Davis bicycle.  Davis Sewing Machines stopped making sewing machines for the more lucrative business of making bicycles.  I believe the early Huffy bicycles were also made by Davis Sewing Machine.  In 1924, Horace Huffman acquired Huffy Bicycles under the name "Huffman Manufacturing Company" taking over bicycle production of Davis Sewing Machines.  Huffman Manufacturing produced more than half the bicycles the US military used in World War II.  By around the year 2000, Huffy was purchased by a Chinese company.  

Huffy's Radiobike, pictured below, was first produced in 1955.  It had a rather short production run due to its notable lack of popularity.  The price was high for that timeframe too...  $100 which is equal to north of $1000 in today's value...  so I'm sure that didn't help it gain popularity.  

Only 8500 Radiobikes were manufactured between 1955 and 1957 which probably makes this one, above, one of the few remaining and possibly the one in the best condition today.  To the right is a listing I found on eBay today...

The remaining photos, below, are from the Wright brothers' bicycle shop on South Williams Street...

What is noteworthy is that although these bicycles of this era were definitely very well made, they were not designed for comfort nor safety.  The saddles were hard, the tires were thick and rather hard rubber (hollow but not pressurized with air like today's tires) and none of the bicycles had any sort of suspension.  Riding bicycles during this period likely left bruises even on a good, safe day!  Broken bones, head injuries and toppling forward were quite common during this period.  Roads were either dirt, gravel or rough cobblestone making any ride just as rough.  A small pebble under the hard tires could topple a bicycle easily.  Bicycle accidents during this period were far too often fatal.  Also worth noting is that men traditionally wore suits in public during this period and the same held true while biking.  

I always enjoy visiting the historic bike shops of Dayton whenever possible and seeing the relationship to aviation.  These two things have always been active interests and activities of mine since childhood.